Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Mayor Ford uses Gay Jewish Woman to Defund Pride

If PT loses funding, Vaughan puts the blame squarely on the Toronto Sun’s Sue-Ann Levy for stirring the pot and “campaigning for Pride’s destruction.”

“I think that Pride will be punished. It’s been identified as a target by a very influential member of the media, influential at least in terms of the Ford family,” he says. “She’s decided that the community needs to be taught a lesson for some reason, so she’s prepared to whip up a campaign and the Fords are prepared to support her. And there are others on council who will fall into line.”

I had an interesting discussion this morning with Earl Provost, Director of Stakeholder Relations in Mayor Rob Ford's office. He is very concerned that unless the Toronto Jewish community gets on board and starts sending mass e-mails to ALL 44 councillors, the vote to defund Pride this year because of QuAIA's involvement will fail.

He told me that while the mayor is very supportive of keeping QuAIA and hate speech out of the parade, he is ONLY ONE VOTE on council. There's no doubt in my mind that the supporters of QuAIA -- including Xtra and QuAIA's new friend Rev. Brent Hawkes-- are working behind the scenes to ensure there's enough votes to overturn the motion.

This is the time for the Jewish community to speak loudly and clearly. If we sit on our hands with a mayor in power who supports us, we will pay the price of missing an opportunity to put an end to hate speech.Make no mistake.

The Rev. Brent Hawkes tour of Jewish media and basically whomever will listen to him is only about one thing: Saving face, keeping bums in the seats of his church and promoting the image of himself, Rev. Hawkes, as the self-appointed leader of Toronto's gay community.

Rev. Hawkes does not speak for me. He does not speak for Martin or for any of our Jewish gay friends. I highly doubt he speaks for most of the gay community, many of whom have written to me saying that he and his panel should have banned QuAIA outright.

He speaks for a fringe group only.

Despite all of his talk about there being a process in place to ensure hate speech is not in the parade, you have to ask yourself one thing.

Will QuAIA march this year?

The answer is an unequivocal yes.

Please take Earl's concerns to heart and I urge you to get the e-mails going.